Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Story Telling Activity

I have been trying so hard to think of ways for my kids to speak more in Spanish (and not Spanglish). No one responded with any suggestions or ideas to my earlier post (please, I need help!!). As we sat down to read books after lunch, I pulled out a books series we read often- Tupi books. Here is a picture of Tupi y La Tortuga By Merce Aranega

One of my girls' favorites is Tupi y El Muñeco de Nieve. All the books have pictograms. So in order to read the story, the children have to say whatever the picture is as the story is told. I love how at the end of the book, she has a key for all of the names of the pictures (sometimes you don't know what word they are looking for).

My oldest daughter (4 years old) told me she wanted to read the book aloud to us all by herself. We have read this book many times. She was able to tell the whole story by using the pictograms as her guide. I could tell some of the phrases she had memorized from when I had read it to her and other phrases she made up to make sense of it.

****I just found that on Amazon.com they are selling Tupi En La Banera for only $4! And it is eligible for free shipping! This is another cute story. To see it, click here.

Books like this with pictograms or even illustrations that tell a story are excellent ways of getting students or children to speak more. Even if you have to tell the story first and then they repeat it back in their own words, they are learning fluency with telling everyday stories. I hope to use other pictures and wordless books to help my daughter learn how to tell stories in Spanish. Here is an example of a picture that might be helpful:

You can also take pictures from magazines with people in unusual situations, take out any words that are around the pictures and the students/children have to imagine what the people are saying.

I have a list with the names of all of my favorite books and authors in Spanish that I will have to share with you later on!

Please share any experience you have with storytelling in your classroom or home. What other ways do you get your students/children to speak in Spanish?

I have a four year-old who is addicted to the "Kumon" brand workbooks from Target. The first time we looked at one together I talked about the pictures in Spanish, and now he just assumes we will speak only in Spanish while we cut and paste and whatnot in those books. It wasn't intentional on my part at all, but it worked amazingly well!